World Rhino Day: Powerful beast still faces existential threat

Saturday was World Rhino Day. The rhinoceros, a powerful, majestic creature that is found in parts of southern Asia and Africa, is still threatened with extinction, impacting the stability of the five keystone species that play a crucial role in keeping our ecosystem and environment safe, according to a press release from luxury watchmaker Hublot, sponsor of Save Our Rhinos Africa and India, or SORAI, founded by former international cricketer Kevin Pietersen in 2018.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, keystone species are those that are key to maintain the integrity of the ecosystems they belong to. Without keystone species, ecosystems and all other species living in them would experience drastic changes that could threaten their existence. Global ecosystem restoration efforts depend on urgent action to conserve endangered keystone species.

Also Read: Over 130 wild animals die in floods in Assam’s Kaziranga National Park

Several organizations are working to help save the rhinoceros, among them a reputed, decades-old conservation organization like the World Wide Fund for Nature, or WWF, and a newcomer like SORAI. While these organizations, through their untiring efforts, have helped to increase awareness of the threat to the existence of the rhinoceros and made important contributions to the preservation of the species, the crisis is far from over.

According to the WWF, half a million rhinos roamed Africa and Asia at the beginning of the 20th century. Today, that figure has dropped to just 27,000 as the dual problems of poaching and habitat destruction continue to pose an existential threat to this and other keystone wildlife species. The black, Javan, and Sumatran rhinos are all listed as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Also Read: Despite some success, wildlife trafficking continues unabated, says U.N. report

But it is not all bleak news. Conservation programmes such as those supported by the WWF-India and SORAI have helped to increase the population of rhinos in India to around 4,000 today, while black rhinos have doubled in number over the past two decades. And the efforts of the WWF, which include translocation and radio-tagging, under the Indian Rhino Vision 2020 plan have resulted in the powerful beasts reappearing in the Manas National Park in the northeastern state of Assam. Started in 2005, the Indian Rhino Vision 2020 aimed to reach a population of 3,000 rhinos distributed across seven protected areas in Assam by 2020. The initiative has so far successfully translocated 22 rhinos to Manas National Park, according to an e-mail from the WWF.

To ensure the security of the rhinos, WWF-India is also working to build the capacity of the Forest Department staff, deploy sniffer dogs, and use metal detectors and other modern technology and tools. WWF-India also helped introduce the Rhino DNA Index System, or RhODIS, a wildlife forensics tool, in India to investigate wildlife crime cases and protect rhinos from poachers.

RhODIS is a tool that was specially developed to investigate wildlife crimes. It was initiated by the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory of the University of Pretoria in South Africa by creating a database using the unique DNA profile of individual rhinoceroses. The DNA profiles of all rhinos on the database system link a seizure to a crime incident and aid in prosecutions through scientific evidence based on forensics. RhODIS was first used in a rhino poaching case in South Africa in 2010 and resulted in the conviction of an offender.

SORAI, a socially conscious enterprise founded by former England cricket captain and conservationist Pietersen, aims to unite complementary communities, businesses, and other players to ensure that Africa and India’s keystone species survive and thrive. Among the many projects and organizations it funds is Care for Wild in South Africa, a grassroots organisation that rescues and cares for abandoned, injured, or orphaned endangered species, particularly rhino. Rhinoceroses are poached for the value of their horn, which some still believe to have medicinal or spiritual value, despite being made of keratin, a protein that also forms the basis of our hair and nails. Stupid? Definitely. But that belief has brought the population down dramatically.

As SORAI’s sponsor explains, poaching is a complex problem fuelled by poverty and the international criminal network, and much of SORAI’s vision is to support pioneering anti-poaching education and enforcement programmes. There are no short-cuts to fix these problems, it cautions.

To celebrate World Rhino Day and boost funding for SORAI, Hublot has introduced the Spirit of Big Bang SORAI, a 30-piece limited-edition of the iconic tonneau-shaped hand-wound tourbillon created in support of the conservation group’s mission. This is the fourth Hublot x SORAI watch, the company said, and as before, part of the proceeds from sales of the watch will be donated to Pietersen’s organization. This is also the first Spirit of Big Bang watch from Hublot x SORAI. Its 42mm case is cast in the same micro-blasted and polished “warm gre” ceramic created by Hublot for SORAI to capture the distinctive colour of a rhino’s skin and first seen in the Big Bang Unico SORAI 2023. The watch is set on a grey fabric strap and supplied with a second strap in black rubber with a striking grey and beige camouflage pattern. Powering the watch is the HUB6020 Manufacture calibre, a hand-wound, skeletonised tourbillon with a five-day power reserve. It provides the watch with an asymmetrical display that sits poised between two sapphire crystals and that delicately balances a time display at 3 o’clock and a power reserve indicator between 8 and 9 o’clock.

Naturally, given that the watch is from Hublot, which is producing only 30 of them, it would be a pleasant surprise if any reader of this website would be able to afford one. The owners and employees of the website certainly cannot. However, those of you who still wish to help the rhino can make a donation to WWF-India.

SOURCE: PR Newswire